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Comment by austenallred | Hacker News Reader

I’m surprised no one is commenting on this directly; it sounds like he has clear mental health problems.

Breaking things arbitrarily and screaming loudly enough to bother other people are signs that something is clearly off, so you should approach it from that angle. That’s important not only in diagnosing the problem, but sadly with mental health problems that severe it may not be safe for you or your other employees to work out of the same location as him (disclaimer: though I probably see more mental health issues than most, I am not a mental health professional or licensed in any way).

That said, while the pragmatic thing would frankly be to fire him (and would have been some time ago), it seems like you genuinely want to help. If he writes good code it could be reasonable to let him work remotely, but absolutely not at the office.

Focus either way should be on getting him the mental health help he needs.

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I agree that mental illness is the primary issue. I have some very personal experience with homelessness, and it sounds to me like there is some mixture of mental illness, drugs/alcohol, and very poor coping skills / life skills. (Obviously I can't KNOW the balance of those things from a distance.)

I hate to sound dramatic here, but this man's life could be in danger. With issues like this, odds are at some point in his life, he could either overdose (if drugs are involved), suicide, or be a victim of a serious / violent crime. Those things happen to folks in these situations, especially if he wears out his welcome suddenly and ends up back on the street.

My suggestion to you is to put EVERYTHING on the back-burner, and get this man some help. The catch here is that he may not want help, and as much as I hate to be "that guy," he may not be able to get better until he wants it. It sounds like he's smart enough to understand that his erratic behavior might threaten his job, and you want to help him get his behavior under control.

Some people need much, MUCH more than a steady job and a roof over their head. Long term success and balance will only come after the ROOT causes are addressed. Mental health professionals can usually help with this, if the person is willing.

Edited to change the last sentence to be less certain and include stipulations.

I understand this is common in homeless people. Either the stress of homelessness causes it, or there is a selection bias: people otherwise mentally healthy tend not to descend to such precarious conditions, or can find a way out with the support available.

"..it may not be safe for you or your other employees to work out of the same location.."

It saddens me this individual's mental health issues seem suggestive of potential violence to _others_, when I don't read anything which portents of violence to _others_ in the OP. That's not to say the situation is not concerning. The OP says there is property damage. The OP says the person is disruptive to other employee's productivity. I don't imagine it's ever appropriate for an employee to be housed in the office.

I'm not a mental health professional, but I do have some exposure in this area as a volunteer for Community Access in New York City [1]. CA is an organization helping individuals exiting the health system after a mental health crisis who are also homeless. (I found the opportunity through Idealist.org. I was out of work and volunteering once a week was a great way to spend some of my extra time).

CA has several programs, and individuals had to apply to be accepted into the program where I volunteered; It was a big step forward to be accepted. Services included job and housing search assistance. As you can imagine this is very stressful situation under the best of conditions.

At the start of my volunteering there was training. One of the terms we learned to describe disruptive behaviors was 'decompensation'[2].

The lesson I take, and what I'm working to explain here, is unless you have some training you are probably not equipped to understand and deal with such an employee. Without experience or knowledge you will jump to extreme conclusions ('not safe' to work with). It's an outlier employment situation.

People in this situation need help and understanding. I applaud the OPs efforts to hire outside of the "normal", compliant, pool of candidates. If the OP is serious about continuing this effort, they should seek training. I can't speak for services CA offers to employers, but it might be a place to start an inquiry about the state of services supporting employers in general.

[1]: https://www.communityaccess.org [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decompensation

I agree this is a mental health issue. I made it a point to get the contact details of all my staff in case of emergency, maybe we need to find their family for example in case of them disappearing and we never find out what happened (for remote staff in particular). Ask him for a contact of someone he trusts and reach out to them, if he isn't able to cope with your next steps, you can make it part of your onboarding process so he doesn't feel singled out. But remember, you are not responsible and mental health is hard.

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